Pox'd Chidaine

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
So, tonight's 2014 Choisilles was fine. While four good 2014 Chidaines out of four do not a summer make, perhaps the ones on this side of the pond are less prone, which may be a clue to the nature of the problem.
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Proximity to the Prime Meridian?
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No doubt, since, culturally-speaking, these are still the headwaters.
 
I had zero problems with cellaring and enjoying 96-00 era Chidaine, including so called off vintages like 98 and 2000, now all gone. 2000 was in awesome shape last year or maybe 2017.

I have had what were clearly cooked bottles of 2014 Chidaines so not sure what to think. Probably a supply chain issue rather than premox. The widespread reports are concerning but I’m also skeptical of people distinguishing premox from the typical Chenin aging curve and seeming oxidized in puberty. BUT if it can happen to Huet, there’s certainly no reason to think Chidaine is immune.

The idea above that the problem with heat is it primarily causes cork failure doesn’t make a lot of scientific sense to me. It’s possible I suppose but I’ve never seen data to suggest that. The chemistry of redox reactions at higher temps however is self-evident.

Nathan, I think most people’s experience with premox is a severely higher rate of oxidation but not every bottle, including not every bottle in the same case.
 
I believe you're misreading, Jayson. It's not that heat primarily causes cork failure, it's that most cork failure along the distribution chain is caused by heat/temp change, which, due to expansion and contraction, causes the cork to move and fail to keep a solid seal. Heat also does its own damage.
 
I opened a 1988 Francois Pinon Petillant Reserve a few days ago, and it was corked. But I am going to go ahead and say it was premoxed, just to get Brad worked up.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Dumped a premoxed 2010 Gomes Colares blanco last night.
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That is a bummer. I just had the 2016 white, which was lovely and saline. However, Oswaldo and I tasted one of the older reds this summer, which was quite oxidized, but it was 50 years old.
 
originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Dumped a premoxed 2010 Gomes Colares blanco last night.
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That is a bummer. I just had the 2016 white, which was lovely and saline. However, Oswaldo and I tasted one of the older reds this summer, which was quite oxidized, but it was 50 years old.
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alors. post-mature oxidation.

what's next? on-time oxidation?
 
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
Nathan, I think most people’s experience with premox is a severely higher rate of oxidation but not every bottle, including not every bottle in the same case.
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I'm not the semanticist here, but I think premox should only be applied to wines that are expected to be long lived but then start to show signs of rapidly going over the hill unexpectedly.

I realize that there are reports of "2 out of every 5 bottles from my case" but self-report is unreliable and I mostly don't believe it as it doesn't jibe with my experience. My experience with premox has been all-or-none. I'm sure that some of the reports are true but they seem to be confounded with the same folks that buy from all over the place.

Premox is a real problem and calling every off or oxidized bottle premoxed only adds to the confusion.

Bringing it back to the OP, Chidaines aged really fast, so I stopped cellaring. They're pretty delicious young, so I guess I'll have to be OK with that.
 
originally posted by VLM:


Bringing it back to the OP, Chidaines aged really fast, so I stopped cellaring. They're pretty delicious young, so I guess I'll have to be OK with that.
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I completely agree. Sure, a few exceptions. But not many. I enjoy them young, too.
 
originally posted by VLM:

I realize that there are reports of "2 out of every 5 bottles from my case" but self-report is unreliable and I mostly don't believe it as it doesn't jibe with my experience. My experience with premox has been all-or-none. I'm sure that some of the reports are true but they seem to be confounded with the same folks that buy from all over the place.
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Which is to say that you believe your own experience but write off those experiences of others that you do not believe as deluded "self-reports."
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by VLM:

I realize that there are reports of "2 out of every 5 bottles from my case" but self-report is unreliable and I mostly don't believe it as it doesn't jibe with my experience. My experience with premox has been all-or-none. I'm sure that some of the reports are true but they seem to be confounded with the same folks that buy from all over the place.
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Which is to say that you believe your own experience but write off those experiences of others that you do not believe as deluded "self-reports."
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Using self-report data is well known to have serious drawbacks with respect to fidelity.

I have never experienced the one-good-one-bad phenomena, once they go, they all go together. Maybe that is not the experience throughout the wine world but given the above, I find those reports to be less than gold standard.

I still think that premox is real. I've never had a premoxed bottle under screwcap, but I can't recall ever ordering a wine meant for extended aging that had been bottled that way. I think there are probably some older Grosset rieslings around somewhere that were bottled under screwcap, but that wine never had a reputation for premox.

Personally, I believe, from reading and conversations, that spotty "premox" is cork failure and that premox is the result of too gentle pressing and not letting the must brown.
 
originally posted by VLM:
originally posted by Jayson Cohen:
Nathan, I think most people’s experience with premox is a severely higher rate of oxidation but not every bottle, including not every bottle in the same case.
Click to expand...

I'm not the semanticist here, but I think premox should only be applied to wines that are expected to be long lived but then start to show signs of rapidly going over the hill unexpectedly.

I realize that there are reports of "2 out of every 5 bottles from my case" but self-report is unreliable and I mostly don't believe it as it doesn't jibe with my experience. My experience with premox has been all-or-none. I'm sure that some of the reports are true but they seem to be confounded with the same folks that buy from all over the place.

Premox is a real problem and calling every off or oxidized bottle premoxed only adds to the confusion.

Bringing it back to the OP, Chidaines aged really fast, so I stopped cellaring. They're pretty delicious young, so I guess I'll have to be OK with that.
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Several thoughts: I've seen too many poorly reported bottles of "pre-mox" wine, when I knew in my heart that there was simple misattribution going on. ie: 2004 Chablis had some botrytis and inexperienced tasters reported it as "incipient pre-mox". So, yes, any study of the subject is confounded by user bias on the back end and the lack of standard reporting of methods on the front end.

I wonder if Chidaine's Clos Baudoin will cellar for 30-40 years, as did Poniatowski. I know he ripped up a lot of the vineyard, so that is a variable. It might be time to try his '07 as a test.

It is too bad the term random oxidation never caught on and that pre-mox could then be seen as a sibling.
 
To this day, there are still occasional experiences of pristine bottles of 2002 Huet that are showing well, if not young. Would you say, Nathan, that 2002 Huet has not experienced premox because not every bottle is gone?
 
originally posted by Michael Lewis:
To this day, there are still occasional experiences of pristine bottles of 2002 Huet that are showing well, if not young. Would you say, Nathan, that 2002 Huet has not experienced premox because not every bottle is gone?
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Indeed, most of my bottles of Huet were premoxed (I can't say all because I drank some before it set in), or oxed, but not a single one of my Huet bubbly was.
 
From CT my experience with 02 Huet Le Mont DS, purchased from chambers in 2004 and from crush in 2010:
(Note that apparently at some point I started looking for the pox)

Consumed Size Cost Refund/Resale Type Consumption note
7/31/2010 750ml $28.00 n/a Drank from my cellar w/daniel, michael & michael's parents at tabard - excellent, deep, young but not too closed
12/31/2013 750ml $28.00 n/a Drank from my cellar w/amy, annie, daniel - no premox, quite tasty, perhaps not as good as 08
12/25/2014 750ml $28.00 n/a Drank from my cellar At daniel's w/his sister, alejendro, mark - delicious, bright, woolly - opened with air. No premox.
6/20/2015 750ml $28.00 n/a Drank from my cellar w/daniel and annie and swordfish - totally delicious - unfortunately, I thought I'd opened the 2012 Le mont sec I'd bought this afternoon. Not ahint of premox and totally yum.
6/27/2016 750ml $34.95 n/a Drank from my cellar W/ tom mason at piquette - terrific!
6/3/2017 750ml $34.95 n/a Drank from my cellar With annie and swordfish and terrific. Great next night too
1/13/2019 750ml $34.95 n/a Missing or presumed drunk

Apparently one is unaccounted for - maybe it was oxidised!
 
originally posted by Michael Lewis:
To this day, there are still occasional experiences of pristine bottles of 2002 Huet that are showing well, if not young. Would you say, Nathan, that 2002 Huet has not experienced premox because not every bottle is gone?
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That's a good question. Wasn't it sort of agreed upon that with 2002 Huët that there was a cork-failure issue?

I think that we need to distinguish between a couple of different phenomena.

Wine goes into bottle in a fragile state, has many different sources to market and the wines aren't aging the way folks would like. This is Chidaine, IMO.

Wine has some mechanical issue, such as a poor cork. This is 2002 Huët. Maybe this is randox.

Wine with a history of aging well goes into bottle, tastes like it will age well on release and soon after. Sometime in early adolescence, the wine starts to decay rapidly. This, to me, is premox.

I think we need to also keep in mind that a lot of the changes in viticulture and winemaking have led to wines that are much more complex and pleasant in their youth. I also think that the prevalence of great old bottles of white Burgundy is a cognitive bias. I'm not sure if even the majority of aged white Burgundy were actually great but it is important to realize that wines made 30 years ago were made in substantially different ways and I really think those changes are the primary cause of premox.

We don't know for sure and probably never really will, unless some wealthy benefactor decides to fund some actual science.
 
So it sounds like your answer to my question is that yes, your position is 2002 Huet is not suffering from premox. I think that is a minority view, to say the least. I am not aware of any generally accepted view that there was a cork failure problem in 2002, the way there was a problem with TCA in 1989, for example.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Michael Lewis:
To this day, there are still occasional experiences of pristine bottles of 2002 Huet that are showing well, if not young. Would you say, Nathan, that 2002 Huet has not experienced premox because not every bottle is gone?
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Indeed, most of my bottles of Huet were premoxed (I can't say all because I drank some before it set in), or oxed, but not a single one of my Huet bubbly was.
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I, too, never had a problem with my 2002 Huet Petillant, although I only bought the Reserve bottlings. They were pristine to the last bottle, which I finished in 2018.
 
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